Many ask if it’s legit, if I actually use it, how I use it, what effects it has had on my strength, size, bodyfat, energy levels, etc.

Hopefully this post will answer all of the questions you have, and if not, just drop a question in the comment box below and I’ll try to answer it for you (or you can just read the FAQ section on The Renegade Diet website).

Ok, enough of the cheesy intro. Here are my thoughts:

I started using The Renegade Diet about 10 months ago right after Jason launched it…but I waited a while to post a review like this because I wanted to use the program myself for a long enough period of time for me to be able to figure out the relative pros & cons of the diet and determine if it was even worth writing about to my readers.

I know there are a ton of Renegade Diet reviews like this online (I’m not sure if any of those guys put a face behind their review or know anything about nutrition though)…so I’m going to try to give you the best info possible and you can trust it’s from a real source.

This may or may not come as a surprise to you but most of the health & fitness diet plans out there are severely outdated (from a scientific perspective), and in my opinion, flat out dangerous. Yes, this even includes many of the “custom plans” you can get from the world’s top trainers.

Sure, these types of diet plans can get you ripped fast, and even get you into “show shape” but usually they come with a price…your health.

These are the types of REAL PROBLEMS that REAL PEOPLE are having to deal with, caused by REAL DIET PLANS.

These are the stories you rarely hear about (the fitness magazines never talk about them), but they happen all of the time, right under your nose. In fact, I get messages on Facebook just about every day from people just like this who are suffering in silence.

Now, I’m not going to sit here and say that all diets that are designed to get you ripped fast will ruin your health, but the fact is, many of these plans are just flat out unhealthy. They typically involve severe caloric deficits, in many cases drug/supplement use, and the X-Factor, if you will, is that they all seem to hinge on the fact that you will be required to do 1-3 hours of cardio daily if you want the diet to work.

Sure, you’ll look ripped…but look at what you’re sacrificing. You’re weak, miserable, irritable, and your internal organs are likely suffering. Your whole life will revolve around the diet and when you’re going to eat your next meal.

You are forced to prepare meals in advance and take them everywhere you go in Tupperware containers. Your social life suffers…and you feel miserable.

In my opinion, any diet plan that leaves you famished, weak, and mentally unstable is just flat out unhealthy; in fact, it’s nothing but a professionally designed eating disorder cleverly disguised as a meal plan.

Here’s your typical get ripped fast diet plan of hell: (1) eat very little and cut carbs…(2) eat only boring tasteless sodiumless bland foods like baked tilapia, boiled chicken, or egg whites and a nasty green veggie like asparagus or broccoli…(3) torture yourself doing morning and evening cardio several times per week because the fitness model in the magazine said so…(4) pound 1-2 gallons of water each day & constantly have to run to the bathroom and expel nasty asparagus piss…(5) develop irritability and self-esteem issues when you inevitably start to feel sick, tired, and miserable…(6) get tired of it and give up…(7) even if you finish the plan your new ripped body will only last temporarily.

Nobody can stay on a tilapia and asparagus diet forever…and once you get tired of starving and reach for those cookies or chips…BOOM…you can’t stop binge eating and before you know it…you’re FAT, BLOATED, HUGE, and DEPRESSED.

Sound familiar?

From the magazines (owned by the supplement companies), to the junk supplements (yep same guys), and fitness/bodybuilding shows (sponsored by supplement companies) this industry preys off your weaknesses and inability to reach your goals and creates the illusion that extreme dieting, unhealthy practices, and illegal drug use is somehow ok. All because beautiful fit bodies are glorified in magazines and across social media….

I get it, incredible physiques inspire us all but all that glitters isn’t gold. The fitness industry has a scary dark side, and the people who suffer from it the most are usually the people who get glorified in the mags & websites.

Over the past 10 years I’ve personally experimented with many of the popular diet plans out there…from the raw diet…to vegetarian…to Paleo…to traditional bodybuilder diets….to fitness show and photo shoot prep diets…the list goes on and on…I’ve literally tried them all.

These diets all have their relative pros & cons but as a whole I believe they are all fundamentally flawed – and that the health risks you put your body through on extreme diet plans like these for long stretches are very real.

Sure, you get quick results, but quick fixes never last forever because nothing extreme can ever give you sustainable results. Many of these types of plans can cause severe damage to your hormones and metabolism…as well as create nutritional deficiencies that could take months or years to correct.

The concept of ‘quick fix’ alone goes against the natural biology of humans in general. You shouldn’t have to ‘battle through’ or ‘fight through’ a healthy diet plan…if a diet sucks that bad there’s a pretty good chance it’s not working for you it’s working AGAINST you.

I know you want to get in better shape, but let’s face it, getting ‘ripped’ has diminishing marginal returns. Especially if you do it the wrong way. The quick way. The get ripped by any means necessary way. The starve yourself and do endless cardio way. Or if you’re trying to build muscle…the eat until you vomit way…

I know that the traditional school of thought says:

Never go more than 3 hours without eating (protein, carbs, and some fat).
Lots of whey protein supplementation (2-4 servings per day; 50-150 grams).
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

I know you have been led to believe over the years that in order to get ripped you have to:

Eat “6 meals a day”, “no carbs at night”, “taper calories throughout the day”, “never miss breakfast”, and “carbs are bad” etc, but the research indicates that these assumptions are all flat out wrong.

Am I saying you can’t get ripped following the typical 6 meals a day, pound protein supplements all day, and restrict carbs to the point where you can’t sleep because you’re starving method?

Absolutely not.

The traditional methods work quite well to get ripped…in fact I’ve used traditional methods to get ripped myself. All I’m saying is that these methods are just fundamentally flawed when it comes to building a healthy physique that stands the test of time.

Here are the main problems with traditional “get ripped” or “get jacked” diet plans:

1. Too difficult to follow. Cooking and eating 6 meals per day is a huge pain in the ass…and it’s the number one reason most people fall off the wagon and quit. Who has the time or the energy? Plus the carb cutting is usually a deal breaker because it always leaves you tired, hungry, and lethargic. Add 1-2 hours of daily cardio on top of that.

2. You’ll get “ripped” but lose too much muscle. Regardless of what some “gurus” tell you, you’ll typically lose a pound of muscle for every 2-3 pounds of fat you lose while trying to lean out…so you’ll be leaner…but have a lot less muscle. Kind of a waste if you ask me.

3. If you’re trying to build muscle you’ll gain 1-2 pounds of fat for every pound of muscle you gain. So you’re basically just getting fatter. Then you have to do the cardio and “fat loss diet” to get ripped after (see point #2 above)…basically leaving you the same size you started in the first place.

But honestly, there’s more to your meal plan than just getting ripped.

As I said earlier, the traditional way (6 small meals a day, protein shakes, low carb) works very well to get ripped…but it comes at a price. You’re moody…your energy levels are down, you’re hungry and miserable all the time…and it’s generally a huge pain in the ass.

In my opinion, if a meal plan is designed in a healthy manner, you shouldn’t have to suffer while you’re on it…and you should be happy following it.

It should provide you with nourishment, taste good, give you energy, make you stronger, improve your mood, and make you look and feel better overall. It’s not only about getting ‘ripped’…it’s about how you feel and what’s going on inside your body.

One of the big reasons I love The Renegade Diet approach is because the author (Jason Ferruggia) follows a health first, performance second approach. Just like I do.

Health & Fitness isn’t simply about getting temporarily ‘ripped’ from a quick fix 12 week crash diet…only to rebound and gain all that weight back (and more). Health & Fitness is about building towards a lifestyle that places health first, enhances quality of life, and prolongs duration of life — whatever “ripped look” you get from doing that is just the icing on the cake. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you’ll know that’s what it’s all about.

The Renegade Diet breaks the rules and goes against many commonly accepted “truths” and teaches us the science behind why:

1. Breakfast is not the most important meal of the day. I don’t think there is one single “most important meal of the day” actually. They all should work together to help you achieve your goals.

2. You don’t need to eat 6 meals per day to get cut and jacked. You also don’t need to pound a bunch of protein all day either. There’s no research out there that says increased meal frequency results in greater weight/fat loss…and the research doesn’t lie – marketing people who try to sell you expensive diet programs and supplements do. I’ve been eating less frequently on the Renegade Plan and allowing my digestive system to rest & recover. I feel much less tired during the day and stronger in the gym as well.

3. You can eat large meals after 7pm & still get lean. Some trainers & experts advise against eating large meals at night…but research study after research study show that meal timing doesn’t matter (no more traveling with smelly tilapia & Tupperware).

4. Missing meals won’t make you lose muscle. I know many people are afraid to go for long stretches (over 3 hours) without eating because popular bodybuilding and fitness culture has conditioned us to think that “if you miss meals, you’ll enter starvation mode and lose all your muscle”. There is strong scientific evidence out there that suggests this is completely false… and some studies have even shown that metabolic rate can remain constant for up to 90 hours during a fast before declining. The science also tells us that the digestion process requires a ton of energy and is quite stressful on the body, so the more meals you eat each day the more stress you place upon your digestive system each day. This is why it’s a good idea to just give your system a rest and fast for 4-8 hours each day (as taught strategically in The Renegade Diet) to give your body a chance to recover and replenish its enzyme pool.

5. Getting ripped should never be your main priority. Focus on optimizing health first (especially digestive health) and physique second. If your health sucks, you’ll never see legit results. I’ve been obsessed with digestive health ever since I first got sick with intestinal inflammation (“Crohn’s Disease”) over ten years ago – and gut health should be the foundation of every nutrition program.

6) If you want to get ripped, you don’t need to pound protein shakes throughout the day. Supplements are great, but they should only be used to back up what your nutrition plan is already doing. Right now I am using a greens supplement, omega 3 fish oil, bcaa, and whey protein in small amounts.

Look, Health & Fitness about living a long, healthy life – a life where you can enjoy your lean body every second of every day. Forget short-term gains that are wiped out by long-term losses, and medical expenses; we need to think long term health and what is sustainable for the duration of your precious time on earth. I don’t know about you but I want to be healthy and still kicking ass in the gym when I’m 90 years old.

Most fitness models, bodybuilders, and ‘gurus’ never come out and say it but: eating thousands of excess calories to try to gain muscle or depleting yourself to a single-digit body fat level is neither healthy (or sustainable) in the long-term.

Remember, food is fuel. Don’t sacrifice it, or abuse it; use it to your advantage. Never partake in unsafe diet practices (severe caloric deficits/surpluses, drugs, hours of cardio, lack of rest) just to get ripped for a brief moment. You love yourself more than that. Health and fitness is supposed to be fun, enjoy it.

The ultimate goal of The Renegade Diet is to redefine what it means to live a healthy lifestyle when it comes to nutrition, and the approach is going to be completely different than what you’re used to. I can guarantee that when you read through it for the first time you’ll be shocked at how it completely goes against everything you think you know about nutrition. It’s honestly a really good read; I finished the entire thing in about an hour.

As I said earlier, I’ve been following The Renegade Diet plan for about 5 months now. As a disclaimer, I was already lean when I started the plan, but my goal wasn’t to get more ripped, or build more muscle I wanted more energy I wanted to feel better and I wanted to place my health above everything else.

To be quite honest, I went from eating 6-7 meals a day (with 4-5 of those meals including animal protein) and 2-3 protein shakes per day…and have cut back to 5 meals per day, two of which are meals that include animal protein.

I feel strong in the gym, I have more energy, and the tendinitis I’ve had in my elbow & shoulder for years has improved significantly. I feel good, I don’t feel deprived or hungry and moody, and I believe my internal organs, joints, etc are thanking me in return.

Note: if you suffer from ‘belly bloat’ (which can be caused by gut inflammation)…you may find relief (and get flatter, leaner abs) simply by changing your eating style to the method outlined below:

Now, if you’re not familiar with the basic premise of the Renegade Diet, here is a basic rundown: There’s a fasting period that typically lasts from 14-16 hours where you eat nothing from dinner the night before until sometime the following late morning or afternoon. This allows the liver to detox, replenishes your body’s enzyme pool, and reduces much of the stress digestion places upon the human body.

After the fast is up the overfeeding phase begins and it typically lasts for roughly 4-8 hours. This strategy of fasting/under eating during the day and overfeeding at night allows leptin levels to remain in check while boosting glycogen stores at the same time. This has been shown in studies to significantly improve the body’s fat burning and muscle building response. After 10 months of doing this i can honestly tell you that I’m very pleased with the results.

Some days I’ll have organic coffee in the morning a few hours before meal 1…and even throw in a homemade protein bar or healthy snack if I get hungry between meals as well.

As I said earlier, I haven’t lost any weight (I was lean when I started), but my gut/joint inflammation has definitely decreased, my energy levels are up, my concentration and focus are both up…and I’m feeling pretty good.

Note: Many of my readers who are also currently using The Renegade Diet have told me that fasting for breakfast was the toughest part about the program…but that it gets easier after the 2nd or 3rd week. You may have to experiment with different breakfast times to see what your body responds to the best.

I’ve never really been a breakfast person (I used to skip it all the time until I started reading silly nutrition books in college that told me it was unhealthy) so the skipping breakfast part was easy for me. Sometimes I’ll eat breakfast on the weekends though. It all depends.

I know said this earlier…but I just want to reinforce the fact that I’ve cut down on my meat and protein shake intake significantly…and I eat a ton of calories at night. I know this all sounds kind of crazy but I’d like to point out my cheesy ‘selfie’ pic above again and also say that I feel pretty damn good.

Look, we are all different, we have different workout times, different genes, etc so what works for me may not work exactly that way for you. There is more than one way to ‘skin a cat’ so once you start using The Renegade Diet feel free to experiment with various meal times and see what works best for you.

It’s all about testing, testing, testing. Figuring out what works. In order to improve we must all constantly evolve and not get stuck in certain “popular” ways of thinking for long periods of time. Test, learn, evolve, grow, and optimize upon what you’re currently doing. If you continue doing the same thing day in and day out you’ll probably get the same shitty results each and every time — and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.

Overall, I have to give The Renegade Diet a 4.8 out of 5 star rating. It’s really easy to follow and it won’t force you to eat plain, boring, tasteless foods in small portions — you won’t have to slave in the kitchen prepping countless meals each day and you’ll be able to pound food at night, have cheat meals and you’ll get healthy and lean in the process.

It’s not a fad or quick fix, it’s a way of life, it’s sustainable for the long-term and I will probably eat this way for years to come (or at least until science tells me to change my ways).

I am recommending you try Jason’s Renegade Diet Plan and I have full confidence that it will work very well for you (if you follow it). My challenge to you is to try it out 14 days in a row, and if you’re a gamer, go for 30 days in a row.

Want to lose fat? If so I strongly recommend buying Tom Venuto’s book ” Burn The Fat 7-Day Body Transformation”! This very well written, gimmick-free book will give you the motivation and the knowledge to permanently take that excess body fat off. So I have to tell you, I was absolutely dreading doing a book review on one of these “lose fat” books because the genre has such a horrible reputation for sleazy tactics, inflated promises, and merely temporary results. I was so impressed with Tom Venuto’s “ Burn The Fat 7-Day Body Transformation” that I actually feel embarrassed. I am embarrassed that his book is so much better than any of the top fitness websites I swear by and have been to, and that I almost threw this book to the side. The difference is in Tom Venuto’s book he covers things in a much more complete, organized, and detailed way. The other important difference is that Tom Venuto’s has some really interesting and exciting techniques for fat loss with the effectiveness of the low-carb diets without the bad side effects. If I had 6 months full time to work on a weight loss book, and I was good at writing (which I’m not), my book would have been almost a clone of Tom Venuto’s book “ Burn The Fat 7-Day Body Transformation”. If you want to lose body fat efficiently and without becoming confused by all the information out there I strongly recommend you buy this book!

The title of the book says “Burn The Fat 7-Day Body Transformation” but don’t let this fool you into thinking this is a quick fix. The title means that Tom Venuto gets you off to a fast start by discussing nutrition and exercise in a manner that you can quickly apply and thus get you dieting and exercising efficiently right away! The transformation will begin right away and it will stay once you have all the valuable knowledge that is in this book.

OK now lets talk about what’s in the book, its 60% nutrition and 20% exercise. In losing fat, nutrition is #1 which is why he spends so much time on this important topic. It doesn’t matter how much you exercise, if your nutrition sucks you will still get fatter. My first hint that I was going to like this book was in the preface where Tom Venuto stated his purpose:

“… to help you lose fat permanently without drugs, supplements or gimmicks and to educate you in the process of losing fat.”

Bravo! So many books are about “diets”, this one is not. Permanently, is a keyword here! When you go off diets, the weight comes back, this book is not about a “diet”, its about a lifestyle change. The second thing I applauded was the recognition of the important role of education. If you just tell people to eat vegetables to lose weight, they will forget. Tell them why its important and they will remember. Weight loss is all about education in my opinion. I also was excited to see that he was not going to plug supplements in this program! IMHO, supplements are to be avoided until the FDA regulates them.

Tom Venuto’s first chapter is about the critically important subject of goals – bravo! Tom Venuto mentions the importance of setting specific, measurable, realistic goals which is very important and other books and websites don’t do nearly as good a job of putting it all together like Tom Venuto’s book “ Burn The Fat 7-Day Body Transformation”. I agree with Tom Venuto’s completely when he says that this is the most important chapter in the book because if you don’t know what your goal is, you will never achieve it. Double-bravo.

As an important introduction to nutrition, he covers why conventional diets fail. I knew everything in this chapter but again was embarrassed that only a fraction of this is on my website. He goes into detail about the starvation response and it’s perils and the perils of very low calorie diets. He also goes into detail about the optimal rate of weight loss. Throw away those stupid height/weight charts and useless BMI calculations – bravo again, I couldn’t agree more! What’s truly important is body fat percentage and he explains in detail why. He also explains in detail why a cheap body fat caliper is the best and most accurate way to go. Measuring body fat is critical because you have to know if your fat-loss approach is working or not so you can make adjustments. I also love his excellent section on how to break a fat loss plateau, I wish I had a dollar for every time I have been asked that question! All thru the book, I kept finding myself nodding my head saying “Yep, Yep!” and this section on busting thru weight loss plateaus is no exception.

To lose body fat you do the same things regardless of body type, what does vary is the quantities – of cardio, of calories, etc. Tom Venuto does a great job of describing the feedback mechanism used to hone in on the proper amount of calories, cardio, etc in chapter 3.

Many fitness and diet gurus will preach to eat 6 small well balanced meals a day to optimize muscle gain. What I did not really realize till reading Tom Venuto’s book “ Burn The Fat 7-Day Body Transformation” was that frequent, small meals are just as important for fat loss! He lays out the case for frequent, small meals so well that you will never skip breakfast again. He has a brilliant way you can immediately break yourself of the skipping-meal habit, wish I had thought of it. Again I find myself embarrassed at the way other fitness books and websites cover this same information, the same information is there but its not clearly explained like it is in Tom Venuto’s book “Burn The Fat 7-Day Body Transformation”! Eating 6 meals a day is really tough for most people and he has excellent suggestions how you can achieve it.

I know a lot about bodybuilding and nutrition but his chapter on macro nutrient ratios taught me a thing or two. No matter how much I think I have learned about fitness, there is always so much more to learn. I always knew that for me it worked best to eat my protein and carbs together but in Tom Venuto’s book “ Burn The Fat 7-Day Body Transformation”, he explains the eight reasons why its important. I love his common sense approach to these ratios and I agree with him completely that you really need to experiment and see what ratios works best for you! I read a lot about good fats and their importance but it wasn’t till I read this book that started to question my personal macro nutrient ratios, currently I have 10% fat and after reading Tom Venuto’s book I’m convinced that I should try doubling it to 20%. He also slams the ridiculous high fat,/zero-carb fads, and explains why – bravo! I really like his simple 3-2-1 method for nutrient ratios (as a starting point)! After reading his book, I am personally re-evaluating the protein percentage I consume. I see definite advantages to bumping my protein intake from the 30% that I currently consume to 40 or 50% and he does a good job dispelling the myth about too much protein being harmful.

He spends a whole important chapter analyzing low carb diets, this is really important because so many of the fad diets out there are of this variety. In this chapter you learn their pros and cons and then learn how to get the weight loss benefits of the low-carb type diets without the drawbacks. The first technique “carb-tapering” is just brilliant and although I have always been a strong opponent of the low-carb craze, this technique makes a lot of sense to me and I’m going to use it this summer. Its a natural extension of what I already know works well for me. The next technique for avoiding the disadvantages of the low-carb diets while retaining the benefits is carb cycling. This might be one of the most revolutionary ideas in the book, honestly, this one I had never heard of but it seems to make sense and hundreds of his clients have gotten great results from it so I’m willing to personally give it a try.

The last 20% of the book covers exercise and its importance in losing body fat, both cardiovascular exercise and weight training. The book has a section on weight training routines and awesome nutritional concepts. Additionally, you will receive 4 other bonus ebooks with this that have a in depth meal planner, recipes and a fat testing system to accurately measure body fat.

Don’t be turned off by the purchase procedure of this eBook – it is legit. This book is infinitely higher quality than the sleazy sales methods that other ebooks use. Personally, I find the 3 mile long web pages full of bold flashing text and never ending testimonials pretty annoying. Just grin and bear it, its worth it. I have purchased and reviewed this book and no mysterious charges have ever appeared on my credit cards, nor have I experienced any other problems. The money back guarantee is real. You can return these eBooks for any valid reason within 60 days. They do send weekly motivational and informational emails which I didn’t want but they have not sold/given my email address away to anyone – no mysterious influx of spam emails. If you buy this book and are not satisfied with it, please email me at the below address and let me know why! To the best of my ability, the review here is fair and accurate so your should be getting exactly what you expect based upon my review, and if not, I need to change my review. In four years of selling these books I have never had a single reader complaint.